Militant atheism is on the rise. In recent years Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens have produced a steady stream of best-selling books denigrating religious belief. These authors are merely the leading edge of a larger movement that includes much of the scientific community.In response, mathematician David Berlinski, himself a secular Jew, delivers a biting defense of religious thought. The Devil’s Delusion is a brilliant, incisive, and funny book that explores the limits of science and the pretensions of those who insist it is the ultimate touchstone for understanding our world.

Автор на основе обследований огромного числа пациентов в области неврологии доходчиво, увлекательно и остроумно объясняет загадочные неврологические и психиатрические симптомы, приходя к выводу о том, что наука о мозге способна разрешать также и классические вопросы философии. Его исследования - это последние достижения в области изучения эволюционного развития мозга. В.С.Рамачандран рассказывает о своей работе, просвещая и развлекая нас. Книга рассчитана на самый широкий крут читателей..Вилейанур С.Рамачандран, доктор медицины, доктор философии, является директором Центра мозга и познания, профессором психологии и нейрофизиологии Калифорнийского университета (Сан-Диего), адъюнкт профессором биологии Солковского института. Рамачандран получил медицинское образование, а впоследствии — степень доктора философии в колледже Тринити (Trinity College) Кембриджского университета. Он имеет множество званий и наград, включая звание члена совета Аll Soul's College Оксфордского университета, почетную степень доктора Коннектикутского колледжа, Aliens Kappers золотую медаль Нидерландской королевской академии наук за заметный вклад в нейрофизиологию, золотую медаль Австралийского национального университета и почетное президентское звание Американской академии неврологии Прочел цикл лекций о работе мозга на праздновании двадцатипятилетней годовщины (серебряный юбилей) Общества нейрофизиологов (1995); сделал вступительные доклады на конференции по работе мозга, организованной Национальным институтом психического здоровья (NIMH) в библиотеке Конгресса, на Доркасских* чтениях в Колд-Спринг-Харборе (Cold Spring Harbor), на Адамсовских чтениях в Массачусетской клинике в Гарварде и чтениях, посвященных памяти Джонаса Солка, в Солковском институте».Рамачандран опубликовал более 120 статей в научных журналах (включая «Scientific American»), Он является автором нашумевшей книги «Phantoms in the Brain» («Фантомы мозга»), которая была переведена на восемь языков и стала основой для двухсерийного фильма на Channel 4 Британского телевидения и на PBS в США. Журнал «Newsweek» недавно назвал его членом «клуба века» — одним из сотни самых выдающихся людей XXI столетия.

Deutsch’s pioneering and accessible book integrates recent advances in theoretical physics and computer science to explain and connect many topics at the leading edge of current research and thinking, such as quantum computers, and physics of time travel, and the ultimate fate of the universe.

This is the Abstract (a summary) of the book. Easy reading for 15 minutes.Category: Philosophy | Inspiration & Motivation | Personal GrowthFor more than half a century, in such books as The Art of Happiness and The Dalai Lama’s Little Book of Inner Peace, the Dalai Lama has guided us along the path to compassion and taught us how to improve our inner lives. In A Force for Good, with the help of his longtime friend Daniel Goleman, the New York Times bestselling author of Emotional Intelligence, the Dalai Lama explains how to turn our compassionate energy outward. This revelatory and inspiring work provides a singular vision for transforming the world in practical and positive ways.Much more than just the most prominent exponent of Tibetan Buddhism, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama is also a futurist who possesses a profound understanding of current events and a remarkable canniness for modern social issues. When he takes the stage worldwide, people listen. A Force for Good combines the central concepts of the Dalai Lama, empirical evidence that supports them, and true stories of people who are putting his ideas into action — showing how harnessing positive energies and directing them outward has lasting and meaningful effects. Goleman details the science of compassion and how this singular guiding motivation has the power to• break such destructive social forces as corruption, collusion, and bias• heal the planet by refocusing our concerns toward our impact on the systems that support all life• reverse the tendency toward systemic inequity through transparency and accountability• replace violence with dialogue• counter us-and-them thinking by recognizing human oneness• create new economic systems that work for everyone, not just the powerful and rich• design schooling that teaches empathy, self-mastery, and ethicsMillions of people have turned to the Dalai Lama for his unparalleled insight into living happier, more purposeful lives. Now, when the world needs his guidance more than ever, he shows how every compassion-driven human act — no matter how small — is integral for a more peaceful, harmonious world, building a force for a better future.Revelatory, motivating, and highly persuasive, A Force for Good is arguably the most important work from one of the world’s most influential spiritual and political figures.Praise for A Force for Good“A Force for Good offers ideas that every individual can work with and build on, ranging from things that help the environment to things that help the less fortunate. [It’s] a long-range, global plan from a brilliant futuristic thinker, so this is a book that can be of value to any human living on Earth. When you’re ready for a jolt of optimism, pick up this book.”—Pop Culture Nerd“Far from being a self-help book, this examines specific ideas espoused by the Dalai Lama, such as emotional hygiene, compassionate economy, and education of the heart that can make the world a better place. An optimistic and thoughtful primer with practical applications.”—Booklist.

We hear often that love is patient and kind, not envious or prideful. We hear that human love is a reflection of divine love. We hear that God is love. But how do we understand its work in our lives, its perils and rewards? Here, the incomparable C. S. Lewis examines human love in four forms: affection, the most basic, general, and emotive; friendship, the most rare, least jealous, and, in being freely chosen, perhaps the most profound; Eros, passionate love that can run counter to happiness and poses real danger; charity, the greatest, most spiritual, and least selfish. Proper love is a risk, but to bar oneself from it–to deny love–is a damning choice. Love is a need and a gift; love brings joy and laughter. We must seek to be awakened and so to find an Appreciative love through which “all things are possible.”

The spirit of our times can appear to be one of joyless urgency. As a culture we have become less interested in the exploration of the glorious mind, and more interested in creating and mastering technologies that will yield material well-being. But while cultural pessimism is always fashionable, there is still much to give us hope. In The Givenness of Things, the incomparable Marilynne Robinson delivers an impassioned critique of our contemporary society while arguing that reverence must be given to who we are and what we are: creatures of singular interest and value, despite our errors and depredations.Robinson has plumbed the depths of the human spirit in her novels, including the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Lila and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead, and in her new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern predicament and the mysteries of faith. These seventeen essays examine the ideas that have inspired and provoked one of our finest writers throughout her life. Whether she is investigating how the work of the great thinkers of the past, Calvin, Locke, Bonhoeffer-and Shakespeare-can infuse our lives, or calling attention to the rise of the self-declared elite in American religious and political life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on display. Exquisite and bold, The Givenness of Things is a necessary call for us to find wisdom and guidance in our cultural heritage, and to offer grace to one another.

Set in Lisbon in 1506, a debut novel in the tradition of THE NAME OF THE ROSE. When his uncle, a renowned kabbalist, is found dead, Berekiah's investigations lead him into the secret ways in which the Jews sought to hide from their persecutors.

The idea of human cruelty to animals so consumes novelist Elizabeth Costello in her later years that she can no longer look another person in the eye: humans, especially meat-eating ones, seem to her to be conspirators in a crime of stupefying magnitude taking place on farms and in slaughterhouses, factories, and laboratories across the world.Costello’s son, a physics professor, admires her literary achievements, but dreads his mother’s lecturing on animal rights at the college where he teaches. His colleagues resist her argument that human reason is overrated and that the inability to reason does not diminish the value of life; his wife denounces his mother’s vegetarianism as a form of moral superiority.At the dinner that follows her first lecture, the guests confront Costello with a range of sympathetic and skeptical reactions to issues of animal rights, touching on broad philosophical, anthropological, and religious perspectives. Painfully for her son, Elizabeth Costello seems offensive and flaky, but—dare he admit it?—strangely on target.Here the internationally renowned writer J. M. Coetzee uses fiction to present a powerfully moving discussion of animal rights in all their complexity. He draws us into Elizabeth Costello’s own sense of mortality, her compassion for animals, and her alienation from humans, even from her own family. In his fable, presented as a Tanner Lecture sponsored by the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, Coetzee immerses us in a drama reflecting the real-life situation at hand: a writer delivering a lecture on an emotionally charged issue at a prestigious university. Literature, philosophy, performance, and deep human conviction—Coetzee brings all these elements into play.As in the story of Elizabeth Costello, the Tanner Lecture is followed by responses treating the reader to a variety of perspectives, delivered by leading thinkers in different fields. Coetzee’s text is accompanied by an introduction by political philosopher Amy Gutmann and responsive essays by religion scholar Wendy Doniger, primatologist Barbara Smuts, literary theorist Marjorie Garber, and moral philosopher Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation. Together the lecture-fable and the essays explore the palpable social consequences of uncompromising moral conflict and confrontation.

Profound and passionate essays from one of America’s greatest literary voices.Before winning the National Book Award for fiction in 1962, Walker Percy was an established scholar of science, philosophy, and language. Presented here are his strongest essays in those subjects, offering what he called a “theory of man for a new age.”Ambitious yet readable, The Message in the Bottle encapsulates the philosophical foundations of his groundbreaking novels, perfect for Percy fans and new readers alike. From discussions on the dislocation of man in the twentieth century to theories on why humans talk while other animals do not, thisis an enlightening collection from one of the South’s most celebrated writers.

Brilliant, shattering, mind-jolting, The Mind’s I is a searching, probing nook—a cosmic journey of the mind—that goes deeply into the problem of self and self-consciousness as anything written in our time. From verbalizing chimpanzees to scientific speculations involving machines with souls, from the mesmerizing, maze-like fiction of Borges to the tantalizing, dreamlike fiction of Lem and Princess Ineffable, her circuits glowing read and gold, The Mind’s I opens the mind to the Black Box of fantasy, to the windfalls of reflection, to new dimensions of exciting possibilities.

From the #1 New York Times best-selling author of God Is Not Great, a provocative and entertaining guided tour of atheist and agnostic thought through the ages—with never-before-published pieces by Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.Christopher Hitchens continues to make the case for a splendidly godless universe in this first-ever gathering of the influential voices—past and present—that have shaped his side of the current (and raging) God/no-god debate. With Hitchens as your erudite and witty guide, you'll be led through a wealth of philosophy, literature, and scientific inquiry, including generous portions of the words of Lucretius, Benedict de Spinoza, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Mark Twain, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, H. L. Mencken, Albert Einstein, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and many others well-known and lesser known. And they’re all set in context and commented upon as only Christopher Hitchens—“political and literary journalist extraordinaire” (Los Angeles Times).Atheist? Believer? Uncertain? No matter: The Portable Atheist will speak to you and engage you every step of the way.

The Republic is a Socratic dialogue by Plato, written in approximately 360 BC. It is one of the most influential works of philosophy and political theory, and arguably Plato’s best known work. In it, Socrates and various other Athenians and foreigners discuss the meaning of justice and whether the just man is happier than the unjust man by constructing an imaginary city ruled by philosopher-kings. The dialogue also discusses the nature of the philosopher, Plato’s Theory of Forms, the conflict between philosophy and poetry, and the immortality of the soul

In this searching and courageous work, Ayn Rand cuts through the haze of sentimentality and vague thinking that surrounds the subject of art. For the first time a precise definition is given to art, and a careful analysis made of its nature. With the uncompromising honesty Ayn Rand’s millions of readers have come to expect, the author presents a devastating case against both naturalistic and abstract art—and explains the force that drives her to write, and the goals she strives to attain. The Romantic Manifesto takes its place as a keystone book in the towering intellectual edifice raised by one of the most remarkable writers and thinkers of our age.

The pocket in question is a small pocket of resistance. A pocket is formed when two or more people come together in agreement. The resistance is against the inhumanity of the New World Economic Order. The people coming together are the reader, me, and those the essays are about — Rembrandt, Paleolithic cave painters, a Romanian peasant, ancient Egyptians, an expert in the loneliness of a certain hotel bedroom, dogs at dusk, a man in a radio station. And unexpectedly, our exchanges strengthen each of us in our conviction that what is happening in the world today is wrong, and that what is often said about it is a lie. I’ve never written a book with a greater sense of urgency.— John Berger

Приложение к книге Ж.Делеза «Логика смысла».В статье М.Фуко дан развернутый комментарий произведений Делеза «Логика смысла» и «Различение и повторение».

Nietzsche’s most controversial, and probably his most important work. The concepts that “God is Dead” and “Eternal Recurrence” with their attendant ramifications are major features of this work. Highly original and inventive, part literature, part philosophy, it parodies both, in its stylistic resemblance to the New Testament and Pre-Socratic Greek writings. Through a fictionalized version the character Zarathustra, the legendary founder of Zoroasterianism, Nietzsche propounds a new and different version of moral philosophy. During the course of the story presented in this loosely structured narrative, Nietzsche develops and presents a contrary view of mankind: as lying somewhere between the apes and the ultimate Superman, or Ubermensch. Ranging from unsupported assumptions to rigorous argument - from exposition to dialog to poetry - Thus Spake Zarathustra is a surprising, engaging and thought provoking look at the condition of mankind. Nietzsche himself considered this to be his most important work. His tragic end, in a state of complete mental breakdown, precluded any possibility that it would be superseded and raised a question of the association between madness and genius.

Davidas Hume'as (1711–1776) yra didžiausias iš britų filosofų, jo didybė, kaip dabar manoma, ryškiausiai atsiskleidžia pirmajame, didžiausios apimties ir sistemingiausiame veikale „Traktatas apie žmogaus prigimtį“. Traktatą autorius sumanė penkiolikos, suplanavo jį dvidešimt vienerių ir parašė, kai jam tebuvo dvidešimt penkeri. Hume'as tyrinėjo moralės filosofiją, remiantis jo terminologija, susidedančią iš aistrų, moralės, politikos ir kriticizmo; tai mokslas apie žmogų, atskleistas empiriškai ir sistemiškai.

Masaru EmotoŪdens apslēptā dzīveNo angļu valodas tulkojusi Guna AsareJāņa Rozes apgādsMasaru EmotoMIZU WA KOTAE WO SHITTEIRU 2Literārā konsultante Gundega Blumberga Datorgrafiskais noformējums Anda Austriņa© Guna Asare, tulkojums latviešu valodā, 2010 © Anda Austriņa, mākslinieciskais noformējums, 2010 © SIA "Jāņa Rozes apgāds", 2010Noskannējis grāmatu un FB2 failu izveidojis Imants LočmelisISBN' 978-9984-23-352-9Grāmatā "Ūdens apslēptā dzīve" starptautiski atzītais japāņu zinātnieks Masaru Emoto turpina atklāt ūdens noslēpumus. Viņš māca, kā, cienot un novērtējot ūdeni, varam atjaunot mūsu planētu un stāties pretim šī laikmeta pārbaudījumiem.Ūdenim ir atmiņa, tas ms sevī mūsu domas un lūgšanas. Jūs eksistējat kā ūdens, un jūsu lūgšanas nonāk pārējā pasaulē neatkarīgi no tā, kur atrodaties.Masaru EmotoMan patīk grāmatas, kas pirmajā brīdī šķiet neticamas. Zinu, ka tās vienmēr, visas bez izņēmuma, attīstīs manu prātu, atmodinās apziņu un parādīs ko tādu, pie kā mani aizvedis kāds īpašs un loti svarīgs iemesls. Šāda grāmata ir "Ūdens apslēptā dzīve", kas sarežģītas lietas padara vienkāršas un ļauj vienkāršām lietām atmirdzēt krāšņā komplicētībā. Masaru Emoto darbs ir elegants un pārsteidzošs. Nevarēju nolikt grāmatu malā.Nils Donalds Velšs, grāmatas "Sarunas ar Dievu" autors

One of the most influential books in the Western philosophical and literary tradition, Sir Thomas More’s Utopia appeared in 1516. The formidable Henry VIII had recently assumed the throne in England, and conflicting ideas about religion were fuelling the Reformation throughout Europe. A scathing satire, Utopia was hugely successful and vaulted More to the forefront of the growing humanist movement. The story of Utopia is told by a mysterious sailor named Raphael Hythloday, who travels to the New World with the Italian explorer Vespucci and remains at a fort built at the farthest point reached. From there, he discovers a strange island kingdom named Utopia, a pagan and communist city-state in which language, social customs, dress, architecture, and education are identical throughout the country’s fifty-four cities. The Utopians have eliminated wealth, the nobility, and currency. Labour and goods are distributed equally and property is held in common. And there are no monasteries, alehouses, or academies to tempt a person to withdraw from society. Given More’s satiric leanings and eventual execution, is Utopia simply an attack on Europe’s wickedness? Or is it a philosophical tract extolling the ideal way to live? Ultimately, Utopia navigates a course between the desire to create perfection and the pragmatic understanding that perfection, given the fallibility of mankind, is impossible.